


Lucky

by scapegrace74



Series: Metric Universe [2]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scapegrace74/pseuds/scapegrace74
Summary: I’m enjoying going back and filling in some of the missing Metric Universe details.  This one is set during the time of Jamie’s injury, so just after The Beginning, and it introduces some important secondary characters.Inspired by the Radiohead song “Lucky”, and particularly by Thom Yorke wailing “it’s going to be a glorious day” as though he is trying to will it to be true from the depths of his agonized soul.  You can listen to it live here: https://youtu.be/D3GgTM5KuJ8
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Series: Metric Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759669
Comments: 26
Kudos: 74





	Lucky

**January 6, 2015, The Royal London Hospital**

Sterile hallways. The noxious funk of London smog blending with the antiseptic sting of the Intensive Care Unit. The endless thrum of traffic, bleep of life-saving equipment, squeak of rubber soles on linoleum. It was only when she left the Highlands that she realized how much she took their clean air and miles of quiet for granted.

A few feet away from where she kept vigil in a stiff avocado chair, her brother lay in a medically-induced coma. An orchestra of machinery beat out the tempo to his survival. The zigs and zags of his heartbeat against the ivory background of an electrocardiograph called forth memories of their youth, racing like wee fiends down the snow-laden slopes behind Lallybroch.

Younger by four years, Jamie had long been larger-than-life, even before he surpassed her own diminutive stature at age eleven. Lying now under hospital sheets carefully draped to avoid his flayed back, she remembered the tiny babe in arms their mother had carefully lowered into her lap all those years ago. Fragile, as though life clung to him with only a provisional grip.

“Dinna ye dare think of leaving me, Jamie Fraser,” she softly threatened for what must be the hundredth time since arriving at her brother’s bedside five days before. “I ken ye miss them, but Mam and Da have each other now. I only have you.”

**January 11, 2015, The Royal London Hospital**

“Fer the love of Christ and all the saints, jus’ drink the damn water ye clotheid!” an all-too-familiar female voice rang out.

“Leave me in peace, Janet. I dinna want any water,” a masculine growl replied.

Ian Murray was still some distance from Room 418A, but he could hear the siblings bickering just fine. Doubtless a good handful of staff and other patients were within earshot as well. He rounded the corner and observed a scene that was equal parts poignant, comic and exasperating.

Immobile by necessity while the surface of his back slowly reinvented itself, his best friend lay facing the door. Ian’s fiancée stood beside the bedrail, five feet of visible agitation. She held a cup of ice water so tightly in her right hand, the straw quivered.

Jamie was no longer the pallid husk who awaited them at the end of a frantic race from Lallybroch to the Royal London that first morning of the new year. Normally hale and over-flowing with vitality, it was distressing to witness him so motionless, eyes sunken and muscles slack. Unfortunately for both Jamie and Ian, Jenny’s sharp tongue increased in direct proportion to how much emotional turmoil she was forced to cope with.

“Och, ye’re finally here,” the woman in question exclaimed. “Will ye explain tae this bampot tha’ he willna improve if he doesna listen tae what his doctors tell him?”

“And what of no’ getting me riled up, hmm? Ye dinna seem tae care what the doctors say when ye stick yer neb in my face every twa minutes.”

“Mebbe the doctors dinna realize that ye’re a muckle-sized bairn with the sense God gave an...”

“ALRIGHT, THE BOTH OF YE!” Ian yelled over the melee. “I am tired of hearing ye bicker an’ so is the entire fourth floor. Jenny, ye’re tired. I’ll take o’er for the night while ye get some rest. An’ Jamie, drink yer water before I pour it over yer bloody hot head.”

Both Frasers froze with their mouths open in retort, surprised by Ian’s uncharacteristic outburst. A deafening minute of silence elapsed before Jenny silently gathered her coat, cap and purse, wished the two men a curt goodnight, then left in a swish of gabardine and discontent.

“Ye’re gonna pay for that later,” Jamie remarked, bending a rueful smirk around the extended straw.

“It’ll be worth it no’ tae hear ye two scold each other fer eight hours,” Ian retorted, taking Jenny’s place in the uncomfortable avocado armchair but sliding it back a foot so that it no longer blocked Jamie’s view of the hallway. 

“Jen could harry Auld Nick inta church, and ye ken it well, _a charaid_.”

“Grant her some mercy. She’s scared witless, Jamie. After yer Da...” Ian left the rest unsaid.

His childhood friend nodded against the bleach white pillow, weariness and something more insidious weighting his eyes closed. Minutes passed, but Ian could tell from his irregular breath than Jamie was still awake.

“How is it today?”

A shoulder twitched in a minute shrug which still caused its owner’s brows to furrow with pain, though his eyes remained closed.

“Hurts like hell, if ye must know. But I’m told I should feel lucky tae be alive by a team o’ London’s finest medical minds.”

“And do ye?” Ian persisted, trying to excavate the kernel of anguish that lay almost hidden beneath all the layers of physical pain. It had been nagging at him since Jamie first woke three days earlier. It wasn’t only the extensive physical damage to his body and daunting road to recovery that was afflicting his friend. The blast had shifted something nearer his foundation, destabilizing the very structure of the man he’d known since childhood.

A long, hissing breath told him Jamie understood what Ian meant by his question, and was giving it due consideration.

“Mebbe feeling lucky is wha’ led me tae this hospital bed.” He spoke quietly but urgently, with the tone of a penitent in the confessional booth awaiting divine judgement.

“Ye dinna mean ye think ye deserved tae be burnt near tae death? Christ, Jamie, twas an industrial accident and ye’re a firefighter. Awful luck, aye, but twasn’t something ye did or didna do that brought it upon ye.”

Another long pause, and this time Ian thought his friend may have fallen asleep. Finally, almost drowned out by the whir and whisper of life-giving machinery,

“I dinna ken what I think anymore, _a charaid_. I got lost, an’ this is where my mindless feet brought me.”

Long after Jamie drifted to sleep, Ian sat in the awkward chair, listening to his breathing and trying to make sense of what he’d just been told.

**February 13, 2015, The Royal London Hospital**

Beads of sweat furled down his neck and his back burned anew. _Aegrescit medendo_ , he thought wryly as he readjusted his grip on the wheeled walker and continued his unsteady progress.

“Very good, lad. We’ll have you running again in no time!” Dauntlessly cheerful and deceptively matronly, Jamie soon learned that Maureen Graham was an exacting physical therapist as well. It was exactly what he wanted, when he wasn’t cursing her for it.

“Can we no’ take the elevator to another floor? Mebbe down tae the A&E?” Jamie tried to pass it off as an offhand request, but silver-grey eyes narrowed shrewdly.

“That’s the third time you’ve asked to go downstairs this week, Jamie Fraser. I’m beginning to think you don’t like my ward.”

Thwarted, he carefully pivoted in a half circle and began the arduous trek back down the hallway to his room. Six weeks spent nearly immobile while the surface of his back was slowly reborn had sapped all his strength. Even if permission had been granted, he wasn’t certain he could navigate his weakened frame all the way to the emergency ward he’d last visited the night of his accident. The last place he’d seen her.

“What’s her name?” Mrs. Graham asked as he shuffled the final few feet and sank gratefully against his bed. He thought about deflecting her conjecture, but it posed an opportunity too good to pass up.

“I dinna ken”, he confessed. “Twas the nurse who saw tae me when I was first admitted. Curly brown hair. Eyes the colour o’ ripened barley. I think she served overseas fer a time. Afghanistan, perhaps?”

He was doing his best to appear nonchalant, aided in part by the fact that his muscles twitched violently after every therapy session, but he still didn’t think he was fooling Mrs. Graham.

“Oh, I know just the one. You were lucky to be in her hands. No wonder you pulled through.” She poured a large amount of fresh water into his re-useable bottle. He drank it down in rapid gulps that leaked over his chin. He realized his was beyond pride at this point.

“Her name?” he begged.

“Nurse Beecham. Spelled the French way, but she’s as English as they come.”

Nurse Beauchamp. She finally had a name. He vowed he would recover his strength so that one day he could walk up to her and properly express his gratitude.

**Author's Note:**

> a charaid - my friend  
> Aegrescit medendo - the cure is worse than the disease (Latin, Virgil)


End file.
